A psychotherapist listens to a patient's fantasies. About...

NAMES AND FACES - INFORMED SOURCE

June 18, 1994|By L.M. Boyd

A psychotherapist listens to a patient's fantasies. About fighting aliens, romancing goddesses, growing wings, whatever. When the patient accepts these as fantasies, the treatment is done. Sometimes, though, the therapist adapts the fantasies, likewise imagining all of the above, and then must deal with them, too. Or so says one such professional. Interesting, if true.

Q. What are the rings around planets?

A. Either shattered moons or shredded comets, scientists say.

Why don't you keep a chalkboard eraser in your car's glove compartment? When the windows fog up, you can just erase them. Or is your defogger faster?

Your hand is of typical width if its about as wide as your third finger is long.

Several generations ago, Dorothy Canfield Fisher, a celebrity speaker on culture, pop and not so pop, also lent her voice to the defense of a medical profession ever under attack. Said she: ''Some people think doctors and nurses can put scrambled eggs back into the shell.''

Correspondents say a book called The Complete Manual of Suicide is doing well on the market in Japan.

Q. What's the only part of the human body that can heal without a scar?

A. The tongue has been so identified by some, but not all, medical specialists.

''Stinking Lake'' is what Canadian Indians along the West Coast used to call the Pacific Ocean.

Q. Are there any authenticated instances of snakes actually swallowing human beings?

A. Only a few. Big snakes, little humans.

''The worst vice of the fanatic is his sincerity,'' said Oscar Wilde.

Fifteen years as a grub, two weeks as a grownup, that's the life history of some locusts.